Second Chances
by Bloody Smile
Summary: After the Volturi ravaged her family, Renesmee fled to Brazil. Years later, she returns to Forks as Vanessa Wolfe, a different girl from the sweet one who left. Seeking peace and forgiveness for her crimes, Nessa never thought that Forks might not be a refuge anymore—or that the Volturi mightn't be finished with the Cullens—or that she could ever love again.
1. Prologue

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hellooooo. This is my first story and I got the inspiration when I found that hardly anyone did a fanfic about Nessie and Jacob being separated and the latter dying. I hope you'll all enjoy it! I'd also LOVE to see some reviews! (Hint, hint.)  
Disclaimer: I do NOT own anything except the plotline. And the OCs. And the deaths of the—OK, OK. I think you all get the idea.**

**Prologue**

Renesmee Cullen clenched a fistful of fur in her hand, watching the two sides 'negotiate'. She could literally feel the tension simmering in the air like a heat wave.

"It's going to be all right," Rosalie muttered under her breath. Renesmee glanced at her aunt, who was fixatedly glaring at the Volturi.

"Aunt Rose?" Renesmee said quietly. Her aunt turned to glance at her.

"Yes?" the blond vampire asked.

"Is Momma going to be OK?" she said. She shuddered, seeing the Volturi's stonily cold stares meet hers. She turned her head so that she wouldn't have to look them in the eye, feeling a chill seep into her bones. Beneath her, Jacob Black growled.

"Of course, Nessie," Rosalie assured her, but didn't elaborate.

"But…" Renesmee bit her tongue. _They're so scary, _she had wanted to say, but she was well aware of the vampires' superhuman hearing, and she didn't want to sound like the frightened little girl that she was inside. "What about Dad?"

"He's going to be fine too," said Rosalie gently. "Don't worry, Nessie. We won't let them hurt you."

"But Irina got bur—"

"Irina deserved it, for causing this." Rosalie's voice was surprisingly harsh.

"You're sure we're going to be all right?"

Rosalie forced a smile. "Darling, why would I ever lie?"

_You lie all the time,_ thought Renesmee. Then, suddenly, her dad was on the ground, screaming in agony.

"EDWARD!" Even from this distance, Renesmee could hear the pure pain in her mother's shriek as she dropped to her knees in the snow beside her husband, who was writhing and twisting as if he could get away from the torment.

"Aunt Rose, Aunt Rose," Renesmee gasped.

"Nessie, stay here," Rosalie urged her. "Stay here with Jacob, OK?"

"But, Aunt Rose!"

"_Stay here_!" Rosalie almost yelled.

Flinching, Renesmee shrank into Jacob's thick, matted russet fur, not liking the sudden flash of anger in Rosalie's face. Jacob trembled in her hands, but whether it was because of anger or fear, she didn't know.

Rosalie sighed and looked away. "I'm sorry, Nessie," she said finally. "Look, keep this safe, all right?" She tucked a white envelope into Renesmee's pants pocket and patted it. "It's your passport—I mean, it's _Vanessa Wolfe's_ passport. Don't lose it. You'll need it if there's a fight. Remember to stay with Jacob, OK? Trust me, nobody will come close to harming you."

Renesmee nodded mutely, scared of her aunt's reaction.

Rosalie brushed her lips over Renesmee's pale forehead and managed to smile at her. Renesmee smiled back, faintly, memorizing every small feature of her aunt in case…in case this was the last time she saw her. What happened next was so abrupt that when Renesmee blinked, the beautiful moment was lost.

First, Alec of the Volturi raised his hand and pushed; a nanosecond later, Bella was lying in the snow, face-down and screaming. Renesmee's dad had gone limp like an abandoned rag doll, but he was still moaning when Caius stepped forward and, kneeling beside him, jerked his head off and threw it overhand into the crackling flames that had burned Irina Denali to nothingness a minute ago. Or was it an hour? Renesmee couldn't seem to recall.

Then the clearing exploded into pure, utter chaos and mayhem as the perfect, orderly lines before transformed within the space of a second into an outright, crazy fight.

Renesmee ducked as somebody's head went flying over her, petrified by it all. "Momma!" she shrilled. "MOMMA!" _Aunt Rose?_ she thought repeatedly, but her aunt was missing.

Jacob suddenly growled and spun on his heels, first padding, then running for the woods.

"Jake! Stop!" she cried, but herself off when she heard soft footsteps behind them. Renesmee grasped the wolf's neck fur and twisted around to see their pursuer sprinting after them: Demetri.

_The tracker,_ Renesmee remembered, with a sinking feeling—dread, probably—in her stomach. She turned back and shivered. _Run, Jake,_ she thought. _Run_.

For a while, they seemed to be picking up speed, and Renesmee's pounding heart slowed. She thought of her aunt Rose. Was she still alive? Renesmee pressed her palm to the spot between Jacob's two ears and channeled her memory of Rosalie's warm, motherly smile to him. _Is she going to be OK?_ she asked him.

It was then that Jacob's steps faltered for a second. Afterward, Renesmee would think it over—the chase and everything that happened next—and wonder if she had been the one who had caused his steady lope to falter with her memory of Rosalie. Jacob recovered his pace hastily, but that was all it took—a single second, seemingly unimportant, yet so crucial—for Demetri to catch up with us, stick his arm out, and knock Jacob to the ground.

Renesmee tumbled off to the side and bit her tongue to keep from moaning from the pain in her shoulder. It felt broken, but she had to get up, so she leaned on a nearby tree for support, wincing with pain.

Jacob was in his human form and on his feet, growling. Demetri kicked at him, but he ducked and head-butted the vampire in the gut. Quick as a flash, the vampire tracker brought his knee upward and hit the werewolf in the face. Jacob flew into the snow and lay there, unmoving.

"JAKE!" Renesmee ran to him, screaming his name.

Demetri looked up as if just noticing her, and she barely had time to think to herself, _Damn it, he saw me,_ before he came for her.

He caught at her arms, but she ducked in time. The vampire snarled at her, and she wanted to cower, but then she remembered Jacob's limp figure in the snow, and she found the courage within her to kick him in the groin with her small foot. To her surprise, it worked, and Demetri collapsed in a heap, groaning. Immediately she was at Jacob's side, eyes wide.

"Jake?" she whispered, fearful.

Groaning, he turned on his side. She was scared to death, but at the same time relieved that he was still alive. "Nessie…?"

"Jake, we have to get out of here!"

"Vanessa…Wolfe…" he mumbled.

"What?" Renesmee was truly confounded.

"Your…alias," he managed. "You'll be safe—trust me."

"But, Jake, aren't you coming with?"

"I—" Then Demetri landed atop Jacob, and the two of them tumbled aside into the snow. "Ness! Trust me, I'll keep you safe!" Jake shouted from underneath the vampire.

"Jake!" Renesmee gasped, her small, childlike hands flying to her mouth. "Are you OK?"

Jacob grunted with exertion. The two slammed against a pine tree, hitting it with so much impact that snow fell off the branches above and half-buried them under it.

"Jake!" repeated Renesmee, aghast.

"Nessie, run!" A dark blot of scarlet stained the formerly pristine white ground, and Renesmee screamed. "Run! Go!"

"No, Jake!" Renesmee clambered to her feet, cautiously approaching the brawling couple. "I'm not going without you!"

As she watched, the stain spread, and the fight seemed less energized and more half-hearted. Demetri rose out of the heap of snow and slammed Jacob against the ground. He stood, with one foot on top of Jake's chest, right above a bloody wound.

"Go, Ness!" Jacob managed to grunt out before he swiped at Demetri's calves, and they fell into a brutal brawl again.

Mouth open wide, Renesmee took a few steps back. "Jake," she whispered. "Jake, please don't leave me alone. I'm scared."

Demetri's maniacal laugh/cackle of triumph split the air. He bit down on the werewolf's shoulder, and it was then that Renesmee felt her heart shatter as if sliced into a zillion shards, each and every one of them broken. She knew that there was no hope—not anymore.

"I'm not…leaving you alone," Jacob gasped. He screamed when Demetri sank his teeth into his arm again. "You'll be…safe. Trust me…Nessie. I won't—" His last words were cut off by another tortured scream of pure, indescribable pain. Somehow, somewhere, he found the strength to shrill out a hoarse, "_Trust_ _me_!" and that two words, meaningless as they seemed, changed her blasted immortal life forever.

Renesmee turned on her heels away from her broken heart and ran for all she was worth, hot salty tears rolling down her cheeks, some dripping into her mouth, open in a single silent scream. She turned away from her dying imprint; she turned away from her tortured friend, running toward her conscience and logic and everything that screamed to her, _This is the practical answer!_ She felt as though she was dying herself as yet another scream pierced her ears. It hurt so much that she couldn't believe that she was still on her feet and alive. She _wanted_ to die, even.

But then Jacob hollered, "GO!" and that fueled her feet.

The passport of 'Vanessa Wolfe' weighing in her pocket and her guilt, shame, fear, betrayal and hurt—hurt most of all—weighing a hundredfold more in her broken, unfixable heart, she ran off into the horizon, tears flowing at a steady pace.

Away from her family, loved ones, and screaming heart and toward the unknown.

If only she could pick the first one.


	2. Chapter 1

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi, peeps! My apologies for the delay in getting this second chapter up. (Hopefully the next chapters won't be as slow, although I can't make any pinky promises yet.) I appreciated the attention, though! Thanks, guys! You're the best. :D So...on to chapter two!**

**Chapter One**

**VANESSA WOLFE'S POV  
****Ten Years Later**

"Please fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen." The intercom on the airplane sounded above a crackling of static. "We are approaching Seattle, Washington in twenty minutes. Please turn off all electronics for the time being and stay in your seat. Have a good day, ladies and gentlemen."

Yawning, I rubbed my bleary eyes, releasing them from the tempting calls of sleep. My iPhone suddenly began playing my ringtone: Silhouette by Owl City. A slightly flustered flight attendant immediately materialized at my side, a frown on her face, as the song neared my favorite part: "_I'm a silhouette chasing rainbows on my own. But the more I try to move on, the more I feel alone—_"

"Ma'am," said the flight attendant.

I pressed the power button on my phone and shut it off before looking up at her with a sour expression. "What?"

"Thank you, Vanessa," said the flight attendant, and dematerialized almost as quickly.

I rolled my eyes. _Stupid woman_, I thought, and turned my phone back on again. _Doesn't know it's rude to poke her nose into everyone's business._ Still, I turned my phone on mute just in case.

The screen flashed with a new text from one of my two friends, Valentina, nicknamed Val by yours truly. It read: **YO, NESSA! HOW'S IT GOING?**

My face broke out into a faint grin at her all-uppercase text. I would have smiled, except the fact that the ghost of a dead grin was about all I could manage after _it_ had happened. (Hell, I still feel like a damned coward for doing what I did.) I quickly replied with: **Good. Why are you using all uppercase letters?**

**:( MY CAPS LOCK KEY BROKE! **she texted back after a few seconds. **ANYWAYS, WHERE R U? PIP'S NAGGING ME ABOUT U!**

I stifled my giggles with the back of my hand. The conversation was so familiar that my heart warmed with the thought. **Pippa's there with you?** My (only two) friends often teased me about taking so long to type, but that was only because I didn't use abbreviations. I guess it was due to my father's elegant, formal—and unnaturally stilted—speech patterns.

**OH YEAH! :D PIPPA HERE! WHERE R U, NESSA? FORKS OR KNIVES?**

I had just begun typing in my next text message when the same flight attendant as before appeared by my armrest.

"Ma'am," she said politely. "Please turn off your phone. We are touching down in Seattle Airport in ten minutes."

Renesmee Carlie Cullen, the good little girl who had fled from the Volturi all those years ago, would've obeyed without hesitation. Hell, she wouldn't even have disobeyed their direct command on the intercom in the first place. But I wasn't Renesmee Cullen anymore—I was Vanessa E.J Wolfe, a pessimistic cynic, physically seventeen years old.

So I glared up at her and snapped, "None of your business."

Her eyes widened in angry shock. "Ma'am!" she snapped back. "It is! It is my duty to protect—" She cut herself off abruptly.

"Protect whom?" I asked.

Her mouth opened and closed as she frantically searched for an answer. "Uh, you, ma'am," she stammered. "So, er, please turn off y-your phone. We are l-landing in five minutes."

Jeez, did this woman have a built-in stopwatch that told her when we were going to land? I was so distracted that the next words that came out of my mouth weren't spoken by _me_ at all. "Yes, ma'am," I automatically said, then cursed my tongue. After ten years, my manners still hadn't corroded away. Unfortunately. And I didn't want a reminder of the—the people who had taught me my customary polite behavior. I wanted to be a different girl; one without the shadows of her bitter, tragic past cloaking her 24/7.

But, alas, for some real mysterious reason, here I was, on a plane headed for Seattle—and then, ultimately, my destination: freaking Forks, Washington. The place where I had been born. The place I had, once upon a time, loved and considered a safe haven. The place where I had lost everything dear to me. The place which I now despised and had nightmares about.

Why was I back? For more nightmares? To see the blood-stained grass where J—where _they_ died? Honestly, I wasn't sure. I could say that it was a therapeutic exercise, to get over my haunting nightmares that allowed hardly any shut-eye, but I would be outright lying.

I just felt a sort of…pull, I suppose, towards the little green town. And to be honest, I don't think _I_ was in charge of my future anymore. _I_—that is to say, the frightened little rabbit that was me—was being controlled. And don't ask who the effing mastermind behind all of this is. Because I. Don't. Know.

* * *

"H-Hey, hey! Taxi!" I waved my hand for a cab, the other clutching the cowl of my hoodie, trying to tug it over my long locks of rich mocha-brown hair even though it had already reached its limit. _Dang it,_ I thought bitterly as yet another cab sped past me on the road to Forks without noticing me, leaving me all alone in the pouring rain. And boy was it heavy! How I wished for a bloody umbrella at this point.

A gust of wind hit me full-on, untangling my wet scarf and blowing it away. Yelling in frustration, I chased after it, my teeth chattering in the cold. Normally, with all my vampire abilities and yadda yadda, I would have caught the scarf in no time. But I hadn't had any blood in a fortnight now, and I was considerably weaker than usual.

My scarf flew up into the wide branches of a tree by the edge of the road and got stuck there, a branch piercing it through. Groaning at the injustice of first having to stop my texting, then having to stand in the rain, and now having my freaking _scarf_ stuck WAYYYYY up in some stupid freaking _tree_, I paced around it, knowing that I wouldn't be able to freaking jump that high and that even if I could, I couldn't do it somewhere where humans could see me.

"Stupid tree," I muttered to myself. "S-Stupid scarf. A-Are you h-happy now?" I shouted up at it. "Caught in s-some stupid tr-tree. Yeah. You o-ought to be proud of the m-mess you got yourself i-into!"

I knew that I oughtn't to be angry at an inanimate object with no will of its own; I had no legit right to. But out of all the confusing human emotions, anger's the easiest and simplest. It's so simple and constant, in fact, that I'd choose it over love and joy and caring any day. You get hurt from loving. You get hurt from believing in eternal happiness. You get hurt from caring. But you don't get hurt from anger. You could be angry all the time—easy. And it's a constant, which is so much better and easy to adjust to than changeable things. (Most of which trample your heart underfoot.)

"I don't think yelling at an inanimate object is going to help you any," said a quiet, male voice. I looked up in surprise—I hadn't heard him coming—to see a dark-haired teenage boy with tanned skin leaning against the trunk of another tree nearby. He grinned when he saw me looking at him. "Hello," he added.

"I'm sorry," I said politely (well, as politely as I could while in the freezing rain), "but I can d-deal with it myself, thanks v-very much."

"Then why are you still standing here if you can deal with it yourself?" he scoffed disbelievingly, suddenly strangely reminiscent of another dark-haired boy in my life—my _previous _life.

I was so distracted trying to forget about _him_ that I didn't notice the boy beginning to—goddamn it!—climb the damned tree.

"Come d-down! You c-can't do that!" I protested immediately, my past self being brought to the surface at the sight of danger. "Y-You're just a huma—" I bit my tongue. Damn it. Damn damn damn it. Why did my stupid, eejit of a tongue—

"Oh, can't I?" said the teenager, disappearing among the thick foliage. I had to admit, for a human, he was rather athletic and flexible. In a few minutes, he reappeared with my ghostly-white scarf in one hand. He jumped from the lowest branch and landed with a grunt, shoving the scarf into my hands. He then raised his palms up at me, grinning smugly. "Haven't I done it?"

"Yes," I said grudgingly, taking my scarf and draping it across my shoulders. How I relished the extra warmth that the thick fabric brought! "I guess I should thank y-you now, so thank you. For g-getting my scarf back. You're OK, right? I mean, no injuries and all?"

"I'm in perfect condition. Hey, wait," he said as I turned around to the road, my eyes out for a cab again. "What's your name? I just retrieved your scarf for you, so I at least should know your name."

Our gazes locked, and time seemed to freeze. I don't know how exactly I'd never noticed them before, but his eyes were a molten gold-brown color, glowing despite the cloudy, rainy day. I broke the stare first, my cheeks flushing pink. Curse my easy blush. It was so embarrassing sometimes—it showed that I wasn't all impenetrable steel walls.

But still, even though it gave me away, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I had inherited it from…from my Momma. And though it hurt to think of _them_, probably all in the dirt, small reminders that _they_ had once existed and loved me such as my blush were all I cling onto to tell myself that I was perfectly sane and that this wasn't just a long nightmare, or that the battle had occurred. (Yeah, right. As if.)

"Uh, I'm Vanessa W-Wolfe," I said to his question/statement, my eyes trained on my open-toed sandals. (Why did I even bring sandals to rainy Forks? Oh, I must have thought that fate would be kinder than it had been in the past to me, maybe to make up for all its injustice to me? Oops, my bad.)

"My name's Jem Black," he began, (_Black?_ said my ears hopefully. _Shut up,_ said my brain,) but was interrupted by a small tinkling sound which I distinguished as a giggle. We both swiveled to see an undersized girl of eighteen or nineteen watching us, her face heavily covered in makeup and her clothes thicker than the thickest wool. And…she had a car, _plus_ an umbrella. _She must been my personal angel, sent down from heaven,_ I thought drowsily.

"Vanessa!" squealed the girl. "Vanessa, Vanessa, Vanessa!"

"Huh?" I said, trying to squeeze my way under the umbrella and out of the rain.

She ignored me. "Oh, Vanessa Wolfe, is it?" she said. I nodded. "Wow! You look way prettier than the picture Mrs. Kerr sent us!"

"Wait…" I said, my brain working ten times slower than it ought to. "So," I said, trying to put two and two together to equal four instead of three, "you're part of the student exchange program?" I had signed up for it, thinking that if I was distracted enough by academic activities, I would be too busy to, well, awaken in the dead of night screaming my little head off. (Needless to say, it hadn't worked. But here's to hoping.)

She nodded eagerly. "Yup! We're going to be rooming you with me! Isn't that great?"

"Uh-huh." I looked back at the Jem guy, who looked mildly interested and mildly awkward. But mostly awkward. "So, thanks for retrieving my scarf, Black." _Black._ The word echoed in my head, and I could almost feel the nightmares coming on, quickening my heartbeat, but it wasn't his fault; therefore I couldn't blame him. Not every Black in the world had to be related to _him_, after all. Yes, I was being unreasonable.

"Eh." He had the decency to look mildly embarrassed. "'Twas nothing."

The girl curled her lip in distaste. "Ew, Vanessa!" she said, tugging me away from him. "Is that a _Black_?" She gave me a disgusted knowing look. "Do you _know_ him?"

"NO!" I cried, blood flooding my cheeks. I pulled my scarf up higher to cover my rosy cheeks. Well, this was awkward.

"Well, that's good," said the girl, and for one petrified second, I thought she could read my mind like my dadd—_No_. I refused to think about them. Besides, she was human. That much was obvious; her hand wasn't cold. It was moderately warm, as warm as you could get in this weather. Admittedly, she wore gloves, but I decided to build a new life on trust. (Yeah…right.) "You should _never_ see him again."

"Ew!" I groaned, letting her drag me to the neon-yellow Porsche. How did this girl manage to make everything sound so…illicit? It must be an unappreciated talent of hers, just like a certain fashionable vampire I had once known. But she wasn't a v—she was a human. That I was _definitely_ sure of. "I'm not seeing him!"

"Anytime you need an umbrella," Jem called from the tree line, "come down to the rez. We'd be willing enough to give you a spare one."

"Thanks for the generous offer," I began.

"Yeah," the girl piped up vehemently. "Thanks, but no thanks. She can buy one for herself."

"And _she_," I said with a glare to silence her, "can speak for herself, thank you very much." I turned back to Jem, my heart torn in two. He was so similar to _him_ that I knew my sleep tonight would be as far from peaceful as you could get, but at the same time, I had a sort of melancholy yearning. _Will he be constant?_ inquired my brain. It was what I asked myself every single time I was going to change: _Will it be a constant?_ "Thanks for the offer," I said, biting my lip while struggling to give him a _real_ smile instead of a dimpled wince, "and I don't know whether I'll ever be able to take it up, but if I ever need someone to retrieve my clothing, I'll be sure to go to you first thing."

Behind me, the girl _hmph_ed and honked the horn. I looked back, surprised that she had already gotten behind the wheel. She honked it again. "Hurry up, Vanessa," she said, glowering to something over my shoulder. "You're going to get sick like that, standing in the rain."

"OK, OK." I slid into the passenger seat and, after closing the door, opened the window to yell a hasty "Bye, Black!" at the dude before we sped off into the gloominess of the evening.

The girl—Alice, as I later found out—chattered on about everything and nothing at the same time, about nonsense and facts. Gradually, though, the world blurred for me exactly seven minutes and forty-three seconds later, a deep, hollow and melancholy depression hollowed out my heart and then filled all the spaces that were just a while ago filled with cheeriness and, as much as I hate to admit it, stupid, effing hope.

"_I'm a silhouette, asking every now and then,_" Owl City blared from the radio. I cranked the volume up, pleasantly astonished at the coincidence, and leaned back in my seat to enjoy the song. "_Is it over yet? Will I ever feel again?_"

_Yeah, that's the question,_ I thought. _Will I ever feel—love again? Is there hope for me, a sinner? God doesn't even know _half_ of the things I've done. Could there possibly be a second chance for me?_

Maybe the Volturi _was_ on to something with their 'no second chances' rule for sinning vampires. They—_we_, that is—didn't deserve a second chance. If you had already screwed up the first chance, who could actually swear that the second chance wouldn't get the same treatment? Once bitten, twice shy? Nonsense. You wouldn't know when to be shy. It just. Wasn't. That. Simple.

No second chances. I was well aware of the fact that I would screw up my second one if I ever got it (probably not).

So why the bloody hell was I—God, was I?—even effing _hoping_ for one?


	3. Chapter 2

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: *Whistles*. Wow. Fast update—for me, at least. ;D Good sign, though, isn't it? Anyhow, I loved reading the reviews! Thanks for your support, guys. And I'm terribly honored that you favorited/followed this story! Enough of my rambling—on to chapter two of Nessa's new life! :D**

**Chapter Two  
****NPOV (VANESSA)**

"Wake up, Nessa!" A hand shook my shoulder. Hard. "Wake _up_! We're here!" Another (H-A-R-D) shake of the shoulder before I could take it no longer and forced my eyes to open.

Alice the chatterbox was standing at the car door, one gloved hand on my shoulder and the other keeping the door open. She was, I noticed with a drowsy kind of satisfaction, halfway in the rain. At least she would know how it felt to be stuck in the bloody freezing rain for eternity. To sum it up: Not good. At all.

"Alice?" I mumbled, my voice currently thick and slurred from sleep. I felt a sense of déjà vu overwhelming me so much that I had to duck my head momentarily under the downpour to wake myself up. (_Brrr_. It was freezing like hell or the Arctic Ocean. Take your pick—it's pretty much the same to me.) God knew how much I hated déjà vu—never had, never would. On the day that _it_ had happened and my life had been altered and my heart had been trampled on by a stampede of wildebeests (not _literally_, of course), I had been overcome by déjà vu. Was this a bad omen or just _serious_ déjà vu? Okay, okay—not mentioning the two words. Not mentioning them…ever. 'Cause then it would be déjà v—

"Alice?" I repeated, to interrupt my train of thought. I was spinning full-circle, I was, with my nonsensical mumbo jumbo. How had I managed to live with myself for the past decade? It was a miracle I was still perfectly sane. (I do hope so. It would be a tragedy if I were sent off to an insane asylum for the rest of my miserable days.) "I'm _so_, so sorry," I apologized very sincerely, "I didn't mean to fall asleep. It's just that—" I stopped. I hadn't been missing out on any sleep—not _really_, though my nightmares kind of epically ruined that goal for me—so why had I fallen asleep? "I was tired." Lie number one to the chatterbox. Hmm. It wouldn't be long before I was telling my tall tales to her like I had to every _other_ curious human I'd met.

"Nessa, Nessa, Nessa," said Alice in a friendly yet scolding tone. She sounded like my momma when she said it that way. I hoped that she would never use that tone again. It was a painful reminder of all the things that I had had and that could have been. "Come on out of my poor baby and we'll be out of this rain."

For a nanosecond, my heart stopped. Her _baby_? I recalled my birth and the pain I had unintentionally caused my mom—anyways, I regained my heartbeat and the coziness of the Porsche once I was under the front porch of a small, humble cottage. Shivering and wet and drenched and soaked to the bone and pierced through the heart with needles and syringes alike, all injecting deadly poison into my core, but under a dry roof. For now. It wouldn't be the first time that a family had kicked me out of their house and it definitely wouldn't be the last.

Alice—after escorting 'her baby' into the garage and out of the harmful rain—knocked on the front door and pushed it open without so much as waiting for a reply. (And they call _me_ rude! _Honestly_!) "MOM!" Alice screeched at the top of her piercingly shrill voice. "MOTHER!"

Trying not to be rude and at the same time attempting to protect my eardrums from the noise pollution, I covertly tugged my scarf up higher over my earlobes. Momma and Dad would have given me a glittery star sticker to put on my good manners chart—thirty stickers meant a tub of ice-cream—for attempting to preserve Alice's feelings but they weren't here.

And I didn't _want_ ice-cream; I wanted…well, truth be told, I wanted _them_. All of them. Even Paul of the Quileute pack, because he didn't deserve to die at the hands of the cruel, cruel Volturi, although I had never really personally interacted with him before. I. Wanted. Them. Back. Why did _they_ have to die? Why _them_? (Selfish, you say? Shut the freaking hell up. You know nothing of it.)

"Alice, dear?" said a sweet, motherly voice that made me want to whimper at my nightmares and come crawling to the owner of this voice—shut up. I couldn't get attached like I had before. I simply _couldn't_. It would kill me all over again, and I still hadn't healed from _their_ deaths yet. Not now, not ever. "Oh, you've brought Vanessa. Good."

A cherubic rosy-cheeked woman in her early thirties or so slid gracefully down the stairs in the middle of the living room (what had the construction workers been thinking?), her hand on the banister. She had laughter wrinkles and all, but they only added to her maternal warmth emanating like a glow from within her. Anyone could see that she was pure and selfless.

She smiled at me, brownish eyes crinkling; seeming to hold the constellations in them (did I happen to spot the Big Dipper in her right eye?) and warm and making me all fuzzy-like inside.

How stupid was my moronic heart to dare to care again?

Did I want to risk everything a second time?

I quickly stopped the smile curving my lips upward and sealed the hole in my steel walls, protecting me from my own treacherous heart. As always.

"Hello," she said.

"Hi, ma'am," I said, being polite. It came as second nature to me; it didn't require any thinking or excessive acting on my part, so therefore I used my politeness as a shield from my unreliable emotions.

"Listen to you, calling me 'ma'am'," she laugh-snorted, the sound being so contagious that it took all the sheer willpower of mine not to join in. Alice had no such restraints and their bell-like laughs chimed in my ears hauntingly even after they'd stopped.

How wonderful and free it would feel to strip away my restraints and just enjoy myself for once. I hadn't done it in a decade. I could hardly remember what being genuinely happy was like. Was being happy a floaty feeling like when one got high? That was being stripped of my worries; a welcome change to my strict lifestyle.

"My name is Anne Esme Platt, but feel free to just call me Anne," said the woman. "All my friends and family do. Even my dear Alice here."

I was so overcome by this easy love that I couldn't speak. I was a complete stranger and here she was, telling me to call her by the name that her family called her?

"I—I can't, ma'am," I stuttered. It would be invasive of me to do it, with me being a complete stranger and all. "I'm sorry, ma'am." Besides, it would make me more attached to her if I called her by her name.

Anticipating her to probe, I was surprised when she nodded sadly and retreated a few paces. "It's fine," she said, but her voice sounded distant. "It's fine."

"Mom, can I show Nessa to her room?" said Alice. The woman—Anne—looked us over, from Alice's eagerness to my emotionlessness and nodded again.

"But come down for dinner when I tell you to, OK?" she said. We both agreed and Alice frog-marched me up the stairs.

"Wow." I couldn't help myself. Outside, the cottage was, well, just a cottage, but inside, it was homely and what I would think of when I said 'Home sweet home'. It was one of those houses that actually deserved a celebratory home-warming party.

The carpet was a rich burgundy color and the walls were creamy white. The aroma of roses perfumed the air, but it wasn't too overpowering. There were two bedrooms along the left wall and, on the right, a study room and a bathroom. By every door sat a glass vase of varying wildflowers, some of the vases overturned.

I kneeled by a vase of violets lying on its side and gathered the flowers into the vase, which I set upright again before following Alice to her bedroom.

She spun around and giggled girlishly, spreading her little arms to encompass the entirety of the room. It wasn't a difficult feat, with the room being so small and all. "You're going to be sleeping here!" she squealed in excitement.

I scrutinized it: two beds had been laid on opposite ends of the room—one by the window and one by the wall—a study desk, and a bedside table with a nightlight on it.

Very squished. But I think I _could_ be able to call this 'home'…after a while. It just had that welcome aura around it. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a fire crackling in the hearth downstairs.

"Isn't it wonderful?" said Alice. "I love every inch of it! Don't you?" She lay down on the bed by the wall and, closing her eyes, spread out her arms and legs as though making a snow angel.

"Yeah," I said, "it's nice."

"Nice?" she echoed, sitting up ramrod straight. "It's amazing! Es—_Anne_ did this all by herself!"

"That's cool," I said, decidedly ignoring her near slipup.

She beamed at me. "I know, isn't it? She loves interior decorating and all, so when Carlisle died and gave her this cottage in his will, she really got into decorating the place to, you know, grieve." Her chirpiness subsided a tad.

I was immobile. _C-Carlisle? Granddaddy?_ my ears inquired tentatively. "C-Carlisle?" I whispered.

She seemed to jump a little. "No," she said, putting on a frown, "I said Carl. He was my father."

"Oh." My brain berated my heart for leaping at the false hope. Idiot. Of course she didn't say my grandfather's name. It was so unusual. I was stupid—I should have known that I wouldn't get the second chance that I didn't deserve in the first place. I was a sinner, for goodness sake! "Are you still mourning him?"

"Er, I—"

"ALICE! VANESSA!" Anne cried from the kitchen below.

Alice jumped to her feet too quickly. We thumped downstairs—at least, I thumped; Alice was light and soundless—and narrowly missed a collision with her mother, still wearing a slightly sad smile. But now that I knew about her husband, I understood the sadness behind it.

"I'm out of eggs," she said. Alice and I exchanged bewildered, wide-eyed looks. "Oh, you girls!" she scolded lightly. "I haven't lost my marbles, so don't look at me like that."

"You want us to buy some, ma'am?" I guessed.

"Well, if you have the time," said Anne. "I wouldn't want to busy you."

"No, it's OK, Mom," Alice said. "I'll run to the grocery store and buy some. How many?"

"No, no, no," said Anne hastily, "Alice, I need you in the kitchen with me. When J—Hal comes home, we'll be able to surprise him with a feast."

The black-haired girl perked up. "I almost forgot that he's coming home this weekend!" She looked at me with big, pleading gold-brownish eyes. "Can you go alone, Nessa?" she implored. "_Please_? Hal's my f—"

"Hal's her boyfriend," Anne interjected. "And she wants to be there to greet him first thing."

"Oh." My heart deflated like a balloon with the air sucked out of it. "Oh." If he and Alice were as close as they seemed, he definitely wouldn't want a _stranger _in here trespassing. Or screwing things up, as I always did. "Sure," I said weakly. "I'll go."

"I just need two cartons," Anne said. Nodding, I turned away from them and walked out the door, reaching the border of the woods when I realized that it was still raining.

"HOLY CRAP!" I screamed at the leaky heavens, ducking under a tree to get out of the rain. Effing crap, my 'shelter' was leaky too.

Then I heard it: a low coughing/chuckling noise. I turned, seeing a flash of brown amongst the green.

"Come out!" I commanded. "Come on out so I can see you!"

Miraculously, they obeyed.

A freaking russet-brown wolf almost the size of a grown horse stepped out of the cover of the bushes, tongue lolling out of its mouth. It cocked its head, and that movement was so alike Ja—To put it simply, I clenched my jaw and screamed into my teeth.

I recalled sitting on his wolf form, running through the forest. I recalled scratching him between the ears. I recalled daring him to eat dog chow and then giggling hysterically as he doggedly chugged it down.

Most of all, I recalled the day _it_ had happened and being on top of him; showing the accursed memory to him; kneeling at his side; seeing the blood spread. And hearing his screams of agony.

The wolf was frightened of me—I could see it in its warm brown eyes. I wanted to reassure it that I wasn't afraid of it but my memories, but it leaped through the bushes from which it had come and was gone.

I stopped screaming into my teeth. I wanted to go apologize to the wolf, but stopped myself. I still had an errand to run. Besides, seeing it again would just give me more nightmares.

And so I fled into the relentless downpour, as far away from the woods as I could get, somehow not minding the rain or the cold.

* * *

**THIRD POV ****(Guess whose point of view this is!)**

The wolf watched from the woods while the beautiful young girl ran away from him. He was confused. Why had she fled in such a hurry? He hadn't done anything to hurt her, and he wasn't planning on harming her.

More importantly, though, he wanted to see her again. To be lost in her golden brown eyes and to be able to just stare, mesmerized, uninterrupted. But something seemed a little off about them. The wolf wasn't sure what exactly, but he thought he had seen a tinge of scarlet in the very center of the lush brown, encircling her irises.

Almost like the red eyes of the group of royal vampires… What did they call themselves again? The Vultures?

The wolf shook his head and retreated into the forest. No, the Volturi—that was it. But the girl, as strange and off as she was, wasn't a vampire. Of that he was certain—he had heard her heartbeat, although it beat like it had been injected with adrenaline; like a hummingbird's heart. Not a _human's_ heart.

But it wasn't his place to worry, he decided while padding away. No, she was just _some girl_ and she probably wouldn't appreciate a total stranger fretting over her, heedless of the pull he seemed to get when he was around her.

He hadn't realized how late it was getting, and Sam would skin him alive if he stayed there for the rest of patrol, mooning over some white girl. Even though Sam Uley wanted nothing more than to retire with his fiancée and battle wounds, he was still Alpha for now, and world-weary or not, he could be real mean if he put himself to it.

The russet wolf tilted his head back to the glimmering moon and howled, long and mournful, for all the brothers that he hadn't known and had been lost in the fight.

At the same time, in Anne Esme Platt's cottage, in the bed by the window in Alice Platt's bedroom, Vanessa E.J. Wolfe sat bolt upright in her bed, screaming, for the very same reason.


	4. Chapter 3

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: I don't have a timetable for updates, so sorry if this is a tad late! See if you can guess who survived the battle with the Volturi. ;P Hoping for reviews! :D**

* * *

**Chapter Three**

"Didn't you get any shut-eye last night?" asked Anne worriedly while the three of us sat around the dining table in the lounge, eating breakfast. At least, the two women were. I was mainly struggling not to close my eyes and let my head fall on the table. Knowing my luck (or lack thereof), my ringlets of hair would fall into the bowl of cereal, bulls-eye. Besides that con, it was also rude to nap while eating with strangers who were lodging you in their house for a year. Very rude. (My first foster family had tried to beat me up for doing it. Thankfully, I'd gotten away to the miles-away police station with only a black eye and some glass shards stuck the back of my hand.)

"No, she stayed up all night long," Alice replied, almost as if I wasn't in the cottage then. Both of them shot concerned looks at me in perfect unison. But, hey—Alice spilled my secret without asking me for permission! I ought to be mad at her.

"Where's Hal?" I said. They frowned in confusion. "Your boyfriend," I explained, finding it weird that they didn't know who Hal was. "You said that he was visiting last night, ma'am," I said, addressing Anne, "but he never showed up. Or did I go to sleep too early for that?"

I realized my error too late. Anne pounced on it eagerly.

"I heard you screaming the previous night," she said.

"Did you have nightmares?" said Alice, almost as if on cue. Hell, everything they did was so organized and perfectly executed that I kept wondering when they rehearsed these stuff. At midnight sharp? Highly unlikely—there were no visible signs of exhaustion and lack of sleep in their behavior.

"Do you want to lock the door before you sleep?" said Anne.

"What were you dreaming about?" Alice pestered. "Is it a regular occurrence?"

_Yes, yes, you don't want to know, and yes,_ I thought. But I couldn't say that and hurt their feelings now, could I? Oh, no, no, no—perfect little Renesmee Cullen just had to poke her head out right now and show herself to the world. (Hey, where did Vanessa Wolfe go? You know, the inconsiderate sinner?)

"I had dreams," I said slowly.

"Yes?" said Alice. Anne shushed her with a freezing look.

"About…the end of the world." Drumroll for Vanessa Wolfe, please! Very, erm, _creative_ lie, although it was rather dramatic. And it wasn't exactly a lie; the world _had_ seemed to end when _they_ died. Actually, it _should_ have ended. Why hadn't it? It escapes me, honestly. So, the twisted truth: a perfect lie! I ought to get an A+ from my boss! No, wait, I had come to Forks partially because I wanted—_needed_—a new life; one without the pain and sins and…the Gangs.

Alice and Anne gasped like a pair of wizened old grannies at a spark of new gossip.

"The _end of the world_!" Anne cried.

"How horrific!" Alice agreed.

Anne reached over and patted me on the forearm, looking all maternal and pitying. Immediately my walls came up and enclosed my heart. Who cared if Rome wasn't built in a day? I could get my shields up in the blink of an eye. "It's going to be OK," she assured me. "They're not real. They're just nightmares."

I tried not to recoil from her hand. It was cold. (_Cold_?) Not as cold as a vampire's, but still cold. Or was I biased just because my temperature was always above that of a normal human's? Yup, I was biased. No vampires here. They were all dead. (All. Dead. All because of stupid effing me.)

She was wrong. It _was_ my real life—this silent mourning and anger and bitterness and sinning. Sinning most of all.

My phone rang just then, and I was freed.

"Please excuse me for a moment," I mumbled, and walked up the stairs and into Alice's bedroom. I pressed the green button and held the phone up to my ear. "Hello, Vanessa Wolfe here."

"Jay." The single word, my nickname by the Gang, sent shivers down my spine. I was about to hang up, but Keith, the leader of our Gang, stopped me with a low growl. "Jay, I forbid you to hang up on your leader."

"Keith." I said his name without any whimpers, like I was just stating the fact that my family had died. "We had an agreement."

"_Had_ being the keyword," he replied smoothly. I gritted my teeth. He always found loopholes. "We need you. Now."

"Why? You allowed me to leave for a year, Keith."

"The other Gangs have found out your secret." My heart stopped with those last four words. _Oh no,_ was all I could think. _Oh no. Oh no. Not again._

"My…secret." With our Gang, you couldn't exactly make it obvious that you wanted something. Because then you wouldn't get it, not even if you went through hell and came back. You had to keep prompting; you had to keep a poker face as though you didn't give a damn about the world.

"Yes, your secret. Your…bloodsucking one."

I sucked in a deep breath. Exhaled. Downstairs, all was as silent as the dead of night. "They want to do something about me. Eliminate me, perhaps?"

Keith gave an amused chuckle. "Close guess, Jay. No wonder I chose you as my second-in-command. They think it's unfair for us to have you."

I blew out an exasperated breath and began pacing the hall. "_Life_ is unfair. What did they expect?"

"Well, for one, you would be especially hard to kill. And you're attending the Tournament."

"Yes, well, I was forced to sign up by a certain somebody." The effing bastard. "_They've_ got all those supernatural creatures, too."

"No cute little vamps, though."

"We only have one enchanter, and he's a drunk. Did I mention that our illusionist is an antisocial, workaholic introvert?" I snorted. "By the way, she's also an adrenaline junkie. Yeah, what an advantage we have over them!"

"I hope that wasn't sarcasm to your boss, Jay," said Keith, his voice ominously low.

I backpedalled faster than I'd ever had, like a child caught with telltale cookie crumbs smattered all over her face. "No, of course not, Keith! I was just—"

"I didn't hear a thing."

I let out a sigh of relief. It was Keith's way of allowing us—only his favorite ones—to ignore the unwritten rules. "Yes, sir."

"You have to come back." We had spun full circle. Just like old times. I had to crack a weak smile at that. It was a constant, though it was quite infuriating sometimes.

"Back to L.A?" I whispered, my heart dropping like a skydiver without a parachute. I couldn't believe it. Hardly two days, and I was being ordered back. Not when I had finally gained the courage to return here. Not when I was finally beginning to get a peace of mind with all the constant green. "Please don't do this to me, sir."

He paused. "I thought Washington was where your family died."

"I am trying to gain forgiveness and inner peace." I felt stupid and childish saying the latter, but it was true.

"What are you, a monk?" scoffed Keith. "I'm telling you this, Jay: you're a sinner. Nothing will change that. You want constants? Come back, then. You know we understand. Hell, we've done our fair share of 'em sins—we're still doing them up till this day. Come back, sister. Your Gang will stand by your side. You don't need some religious 'inner peace' thingamajig to cope."

My eyes brimmed with hot tears threatening to spill over. I wiped them dry on the sleeve of my sweatshirt, making an attempt to stay strong. Tears were weak and the Gang didn't appreciate any shows of weakness, especially not Keith. "I will," I said.

"When?" So he had caught the fact that I hadn't specified my promise. We were all expertized in acquiring and using loopholes.

"I'm not sure."

An exasperated sigh came from his end. "Fine—any time before next month is fine. Just…just keep safe, OK? We need you for the big tea party." It was our nickname for the Tournament, something that Valentina Smithfield—the aforementioned Val—had come up with while reading _Alice in Wonderland_. "You're one of our most invaluable assets."

"Yes, sir. I will."

"And I heard something about the Vol-Vol…" he trailed off. "Whatever they're called. Some rumors…faint, but I heard 'em all the same."

NO. No effing way was this freaking possible. _No, not again. PLEASE tell me this is a mix-up._

"Yeah?" I breathed, my voice raggedy. Downstairs, Alice and Anne burst in conversation once more, but I couldn't make out the details. They were speaking too fast, and my heart was pounding louder than ever in my ears. "I'm not sure I am following, sir." _Keep calm, keep calm. _It was all I could do not to demand answers right there and then.

"Well, you see," he said, "the Vol-whatsit are onto this trail. They've been looking for years—and that's a feat worth noting—but now they've found her."

"Oh? And who is this…_woman_?" I feigned ignorance as he thought about it.

"She ought to be a woman, but she's stuck at seventeen forever." My heartbeat was so loud I could hardly hear him over it. "She's this hybrid beast, they say. I also hear tell that they're hunting her down. As. We. Speak."

I thought they had lost my trail and had given up. After all, it was the whole reason why Ja—_he_ had died: for me. And now, not only had I _not_ repaid the favor, now the Volturi had caught me. For the second time in a decade. I was getting rather sloppy. I deserved to be caught and killed at their hands.

In my moment of overdue epiphany, I threw caution to the wind. "Why are they still chasing her?" I asked. "How did they catch her? Are they still in Volterra?"

I could practically hear the smug smirk in his voice as he answered. "Oh…I dunno. Why, do you know this gal? Is she—_Ohhhh_, I see. Indeed, indeed. So this is why…"

_SHUT UP AND ANSWER ME!_ I wanted to shout. "Sir, please answer—" But before I could continue, he disconnected and I was left hanging.

Anne called from below, "Nessa! Come on down and meet Alice's boyfriend."

Looking at my haunted reflection in the mirror, I tried out quirking my lips and practiced until I was sure it looked natural. I then cleared my throat and sashayed down the stairs as though I hadn't a single care in the world.

Anne met me at the bottom and led me to the lounge, where petite little Alice was brighter than I had ever seen anyone, sitting on the sofa beside a blond-haired young man with a composed expression.

"Hey, Nessa," Alice greeted me as I perched on the armrest of a couch far away enough to ensure them privacy. Her pleased grin was contagious, but I kept my mouth a flat line. It wasn't hard, truth be told. "This is Hal Whitlock, my boyfriend. Hal, this is Vanessa Wolfe. She's the exchange student from…er, where were you from again?"

"California," I said.

"Oh, yeah! Nessa's from California."

Hal smiled a little and held out his hand for me to shake. I did so happily, thankful that not all the people expected a hug. Not that that wasn't an exaggeration, of course.

"Hello," he said. He was paler than Anne, but almost the same as Alice. Still, they were some of the palest humans I had ever encountered.

"Hello, sir," I said, then instantly mentally cursed myself for it. It could be a tad weird to people in general if a teen girl only a few years younger came up to them and called them 'sir'.

His smile widened slightly. Apparently, he was big on the respect thingy.

Anne entered with a platter of fruit and chocolate Oreo cookies, and served them right up. "We've just had breakfast," she explained apologetically to Hal, "but I assume you didn't eat anything, so I decided to treat you all with these."

I would have dug right away. It would've cheered me up plenty after the Volturi rumors, but this wasn't my family. They were strangers. Thus I had to hold back politely while the others ate, only joining in when they had moved on to their second helpings.

And it was torture, I tell you—torture! They ate and chewed and swallowed _real_ slow, while I could only watch in starvation. After having tormented me enough—I was certain that they did it on purpose—Anne looked me in the eye and asked me if I was allergic to anything. Afraid to hurt her feelings, I quickly shook my head like a good little girl and started scarfing them down.

Long after they had finished, all of them looking a shade or two paler than before, I was still on my last Oreos. They studied me like I was a guinea pig that had undergone scientific experiments. I didn't like the look of that at all.

"So," said Anne, "where exactly are you from, Vanessa?"

_Should I tell them the truth or not? _queried my mouth. _I'm good at lying. REALLY good._

"Well," I said, shifting uncomfortably on the stiff armrest, "technically, ma'am, I'm from Los Angeles."

"Is that where you were born?" said Anne.

"My birthplace is Forks, ma'am," I said.

_Why didn't you lie?_ roared my brain. _You could have lied!_

_I dunno,_ said my mouth, sounding like it would shrug if it could. _That's what her heart told me to do._

_True, that,_ my heart confessed.

I shut them up and focused on the _real_ conversation instead of an internal one with my body parts. (OK, now _that_ sounded crazy, not to mention gross. Crazier than losing an argument with an inanimate object. But since I did both, my opinion was hardly worth much.)

Oddly, I now found that all three of them were looking at me queerly.

"What?"

"Well," said Alice hesitantly, her golden-brownish eyes bugging out enough to tell me that she thought that I wasn't as sane as I would like to be, "you were talking."

"So were you," I pointed out, gesturing to all of them.

"Yeaaaahh…" said Alice, dragging the word out so much that it became two syllables. God, she sounded like she was about to tell me that I had a rare, incurable Antarctic disease which would only allow me one more day of life! "But you were _kind of_ talking to yourself. You just told us to '_shut up_'."

I felt like slapping my forehead with my palm. Damn it, damn it, damn it! Was I actually turning more insane by the minute? Were they going to manacle me to a portable bed/stretcher and hustle my screaming figure off to the insane asylum? Effing crap.

"I apologize most sincerely for everything," I said. Seeing their freaked-out, confused faces, I couldn't help but attempt something stupid and hilarious. "OK," I said, holding up an Oreo cookie. "Look at this." I got out a string from my jeans pocket, bit an infinitesimal hole through the cookie, and looped the string in, tying it until the Oreo was dangling from one end of the string like a pendulum.

I swung it from side to side, gently at first, but gradually increasing the tempo. "Follow it with your eyes," I ordered them, biting back a giggle. Their wide eyes stalked the Oreo's movements without blinking once. "Now, you are very sleepy. _Very_ tired. You want to go to sleep." It was so hilarious, I should have gotten out a camera or something and taped it and posted it on YouTube. Well, too bad so sad. The time to do all that was over now. "But you can't sleep yet," I reminded them sternly. "You do not remember anything that relates to my potential insanity. You do not remember—"

"Wait a sec," Alice piped up. "You're insane? Did you visit Seattle's insane asylum?"

She and Anne looked at each other and promptly screamed. Well, I suspect Alice did most of the screaming. Anne was just gaping and murmuring incomprehensible words under her breath and shaking Alice's shoulders. But I suppose we can all agree that they were freaking out together.

Since he was the only person other than me in the room who was not freaking out, I looked to Hal for support. His confused eyes met mine and we did a half-shrug in unison.

"Ladies," Hal said, "I think what Vanessa said was '_potential_ insanity'. Not _insanity_."

"Hey," I said, feeling unreasonably and immaturely offended (don't blame me—something about quiet, composed Hal made me want to prove myself), "if you're going to quote me, you should say 'potential insanity' because that's what I said. I didn't say '_potential_ insanity' now, did I?" And while I was feeling pleased with my immature logic, Hal turned back to calming the 'ladies' down.

"Look, I'm not insane!" I told them.

"We know you're not." That was Alice. Well, no, it wasn't—it was an unexpected answer. But you know what I mean.

"What?"

"Of course," said Anne serenely.

"What?"

Since I was apparently unable to say more than that one word, Hal took over the interrogation. "She means to say: Then why did you scream?"

"I meant what I said," I said, offended again, "and what I said was 'what'." He was in no position to control me like this.

"We thought you found out the secret," said Alice cryptically. "You don't know, I presume?"

"What secret?" I said.

Anne beamed at me as if she had gotten an early Christmas present. "It's nothing you need to worry about," she assured me. "Just don't go to the insane asylum in Seattle, OK?"

"Why would I go?" I asked, my rebellious side secretly thinking that I would go as soon as possible.

"Wow, those cookies were great, Es—_Anne_!" Alice cried suddenly, throwing her arms around the woman.

"Thank you, Alice," Anne replied. "But I didn't make them."

"Hey, Nessa," Alice said to me, "do you think you'll go to Forks High while you're here?"

My chest clenched, suffocating me. It was the school Momma had attended during her stay in Forks. It was highly unlikely that I would see something obvious like her footprints that would remind me of her, but I was growing paranoid.

"I…" I breathed. "I d-don't know…"

"Do not fret, Nessa," Anne said. "We will help you enroll."

Holy shit—WHAT? I did NOT want to enroll in _any_ new school, least of all the place that my family, guised as high school students, had attended right before they died. What the effing hell were they thinking?!

Anne leveled a stern, teacher-like look at me. "Please refrain from swearing," she said. Darn it. I hadn't meant to say it all aloud. "And as long as you stay under my roof, you will be attending Forks High School, heedless of your protests. You will start on Monday. Is that clear?"

I hung my head. This was not turning out good. I only had this weekend to explore Forks and La Push before school started. Damn. "Yes, ma'am."

Anne waved a hand, the smile back on her face now that I had given in to her. She was alike Esme in many ways, including this. Once, I had refused to do my homework, and boy was Esme mad! "Now run off and enjoy your remaining two days of freedom," she offered. "Isn't it a beautiful day?"

"Yes, ma'am." I stuffed my makeshift Oreo pendulum into my jeans pocket and left the cottage, suddenly pierced by a thought: I could go and check on La Push.

The Pack was probably all…all _dead_, but I had to go. Maybe, sitting on the edge of the cliffs, I would be able to find forgiveness for my unforgivable sins and peace.

_I'm telling you this, Jay: you're a sinner. Nothing will change that._ Keith's words echoed in my head. He was right about many things. And this…this was true. So, so true. I was a sinner. I was a coward. La Push deserved much better than to have me and my blackness tainting it.

I turned from the border of the forest and followed the road to Forks.

_Nothing will change that._

True. Again.


	5. Chapter 4

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: I KNOW THIS IS ULTRA-LATE, but PLEASE DON'T KILL ME! (Have mercy!) :( Again, my non-existent update timetable is incredibly messed up. Forgive me? Chapter four is as follows, and I'm still hoping for reviews! ;P**

* * *

**Chapter Four**

"_Nessie_."

It was only a mere whisper on the wind, yet I heard it clearer than anything. And I recognized it—oh, yes, I did. I would recognize it amidst a crowd—no, a _sea_ of chattering people; it was only to be expected that I recognized it now, when there was only me and silence.

Well, me and silence and…and _him_.

"Jake?" I whispered, not daring to hope. There was whiteness all around me, an impenetrable, thick cloud of white isolating me from the rest of the world. I could see my body, but everything was blurry, and I felt all numb and tingly within.

"_Nessie_." My name was breathed like a sigh. Somewhere far away in the horrid whiteness, a faint, dark silhouette moved.

"Jake!" Impossible. Didn't Demetri kill him?

_No,_ I told myself. _No, that's wrong. See, if Demetri killed him, then he would not be here, would he?_

My heart suddenly sprouted a pair of feathery wings—not putrid white like the veil separating me from him—and flew to heaven. Because surely…surely this had to be heaven. Paradise. Nirvana.

"_Jake_!" I called, seeing his silhouette—it had to be him, it HAD to be!—in the foggy white and yet hearing nothing other than my thickening voice. I needed to hear him again. Just once more, and I would believe.

"_Ness_," he sighed. "_Renesmee._"

"Yes, yes!" I cried. "Yes, I'm Renesmee, Jacob. I'm here. Just over here." I tried to go to him, but my limbs were numb, and trying to walk through this effing white was like trying to walk through sludge.

But I didn't care, because you know what? If he was here, it meant that the past decade was a nightmare—albeit a _very_ long one. It meant that:

a) _they_ had not died

b) I had not committed all the sins and crimes that I had

c) _he_ was still alive

d) I could now say _their_ names freely without inflicting nightmares and/or further pain upon myself

e) I was still Renesmee Carlie Cullen, not Vanessa E.J Wolfe

YES! I had never been happier in my entire life. YES YES YES YES!

"Yes!" I laughed. "I'm so stupid. It was all a _dream_! I'm still Renesmee!" I laughed even more at that. I felt as though I could have leaped there and then and flown without gravity holding me down. _Nothing_ could hold me down now.

"_Ness_," said Jake, and this time, he didn't sound too happy. My celebratory grin melted clean off my face. "_You must flee._"

"_What_? No!" I protested. "I just got back!"

"_Run. Go. Trust me, OK?_"

It was those two effing words that pulled at my heartstrings with such immense power that my heart came hurtling down from heaven and onto Earth.

"What?" I said, reaching out for the silhouette, but unable to do more than twitch my fingers. "_What is it_, Jake?" His panic was really starting to get to me.

"_Run! Go!_"

"From what?" I asked. "Where to? Not Brazil, _please_! That was just a dream, Jacob! You didn't die; neither did my parents and my family!"

When he spoke again, I felt the sadness emanating from every word. Every single freaking syllable. "_Nessie, I'm not going to be here much longer._"

"No, you can't go!"

"_I have to. I…I no longer belong with the dead._"

_The dead…_

God have mercy! My throat clogged up entirely, and I tried not to choke on my words. "No!" I sobbed. _Never_ _hope_. "No, Jake! You can't leave me _again_! I'm your effing _imprint_! You can't go!"

"_Go, Ness!_"

"But…Jake, please don't leave me alone," I pleaded. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I had a sudden sense of déjà vu. Why, I wasn't exactly sure.

"_I'm not leaving you alone_," Jake insisted. "_You'll be safe. Trust me, Nessie._"

And… WHAM!

The reason for the sense of déjà vu whacked me upside the head. _Silly!_ it seemed to be taunting me. _Don't you remember? _Because those were the exact words that Jacob had said to me that day, when he and Demetri…when I had fled…when I had selfishly put my life above theirs.

"JAKE!" I shrieked. I had felt something tug at my whole essence, pulling me away from the dark silhouette that I was sure was him. "JACOB! NO!"

"_Trust me!_" screamed Jake. "_I'm not leaving you alone!_"

"NO, I WANT TO STAY WITH YOU!" It was pulling me away, painlessly disintegrating me. It was putting my heart through a shredder and repeatedly ripping my heart to infinitesimal bits.

"_You'll be safe! GO!_"

"I. DON'T. CARE! I WANT _YOU_!"

Colors were beginning to light up the world, and I knew that I wouldn't have much more time with him. My struggles were feeble and ineffective. I was leaving him. Again.

Jacob lowered his voice, yet I could still hear him like he was speaking into my ear. "_I'm not leaving you alone, Ness,_" he assured me. "_You may not know, but I am in the living world still. I just have a different face._"

"What?" I was _so_ not in the mood for puzzles.

"_Vanessa, I will never abandon you. I will always stay by your side. I just hope that one day, you'll wake up and see me through my new body._"

I choked on my tears. Alice's bedroom was slowly coming into view. I wanted it to disappear—all of it. It was nice and all, but I wanted to find Jake again and live the life I would've lived if the effing Volturi hadn't interfered.

"_GO. Trust me._"

"Nessa?" That was Alice, coming over to shake my shoulder. She swatted me with a pillow. "Wake up, Nessa."

_I don't want to!_ I wanted to scream at her. _Leave me alone!_

Before the ugly whiteness and the dark silhouette—still didn't know who it was; still hoped that it was _him_—vanished completely, I heard Jake whisper: "_Swim out to find me, Ness. I'm waiting._"

Alice's petite white face—UGH, white—creased in a frown. "Are you OK, Nessa?" she asked. "That was a hell of a nightmare you had back there. You were screaming loud enough to wake the dead."

She laughed at her joke; I didn't. If only my screams could wake the dead, then I would scream until I lost my voice forever if only it meant that _they_ came back to me.

I buried my head under my duvet, unwilling to come up and talk with the person who had made _him_ go.

"Nessa, you know that you can talk to me and Es—I mean, Anne anytime, right?" she asked me.

I nodded mutely.

"Please talk to us. I know you probably have horrible nightmares."

No, not this time. This time, I had had the first _GOOD_ dream, and it just HAD to be ruined by Alice. Oh, wait, _sorry_. She and Anne were the ones housing me.

"OK, Nessie. If you're not going to talk to me, at least look at me, all right?" she begged.

My blood chilled. _Nessie._ She had called me by my former nickname: Nessie. How—Did she know? Did. She. _Know_?

"_Nessie_?" I whispered.

"Oh, sorry," said Alice contritely. "You don't like the n-nickname? Sorry, I-I assumed that you would be comfortable with it. I am really sorry, Vanessa."

Oh. So she didn't know…

"I-It's OK, Alice," I sighed. "I'm just going to get some shut-eye now. Can you—?"

"Leave? Stop bothering you?" Alice chuckled wanly. "Of course, Nessa. Sorry again. I'll—I'll let you snooze."

"Thanks," I mumbled, but Alice was already in her bed, head buried under her pillow.

All night long, I tossed and turned, unable to sleep. Something was niggling at the back of my mind, probing and not letting me sleep.

It was a quarter to one when I shot upright in bed, my back ramrod straight. I knew what it was.

Jacob had said: "_Swim out to find me, Ness._"

And the nearest beach was at La Push—the very place that Jake and the Pack had stayed at. Did he mean… Could he be…there?

"_Swim out to find me._"

I scrambled out of my bed and, careful not to wake my snoozing roommate, replaced my pajamas with a swimsuit, since I would be swimming. (I highly doubted that Jake would be out in the water at midnight, but, hey. He _had_ told me to go swimming.) Then, while I tip-toed down the stairs and out the door, I donned an overcoat and a pair of sleek leather gloves.

For some reason, I couldn't seem to find my incredible Nike trainers even with a flashlight, so I decided to go barefoot.

Oops. MAJOR mistake. When my bare feet touched the dirt and all the pebbles underfoot, it was all I could do to suppress a pained yelp.

In spite of the torture inflicted upon my poor feet, somehow I managed to endure miles of walking and finally ended up at my destination: First Beach, La Push. (Yay, me!) After doing a short victory jig—which ended abruptly when I stubbed my toe for the thousandth time tonight—I took off my coat and set it on a large boulder nearby.

"_Vanessa, I will never abandon you. I will always stay by your side._"

Still I hesitated at the edge of the water. Waves lapped at my feet, sending chills into my bones.

"_Swim out to find me, Ness. I'm waiting._"

He was waiting for me. Jacob Black was waiting for me. All I had to do was swim.

Swim. Swim. Swim.

I dived into the water and it was like dumping myself into the icy water of the Arctic. Teeth chattering, I pushed on. Jacob was waiting for me—I would not let him down. I. Would. Not. Fail.

"_I'm waiting_."

"I'm coming, Jake," I called. My limbs were slowly numbing, but I persevered. This was all for Jake; for the time that I had let him and the others down when I fled like the coward that I was. This time, though? I would not fail him.

I didn't know how long I swam, but eventually, the beach was just a faraway line of yellow in the dim lighting. My limbs, having been numbed by the freezing water long ago, were slowing. I could hardly hear anything over the chatter of my teeth.

Yet I still had to go on. I hadn't found Jake yet; he must be further out. How much further, I hadn't the faintest idea.

I just knew that I had to keep going. I _HAD_ to.

Against my wishes, my strength flagged, and I began to sink. In the distance, I could hear yelling. Was it Jake? Had I finally found him?

"Jake," I tried to shout, but the word was barely more than a watery gurgle. Something splashed water into my face.

"NO!" a male yelled. "NO! Don't go! C'mon, Nessa!"

_Go where_? my fuzzy brain asked. I was sinking, sinking into the murky depths where Jacob would never find me. No, I had to get back to the surface! I was almost there; I could feel it in my tingling bones.

"NESSIE!" someone shouted. Something warm—too warm—squeezed my wrists. I knew that temperature. I KNEW IT.

I had reached Jacob!

"I've done it," I told him. "I've come."

_"I just hope that one day, you'll wake up and see me through my new body. I'm waiting, Vanessa._"

I didn't know what he meant, but I did know that I would do anything and everything that he requested, if only it would bring us back together. I knew that I had achieved _something_. When the blackness overwhelmed me, I was smiling.


End file.
